HP, Microsoft expand alliance in UC

LAS VEGAS, USA:HP and Microsoft Corp., announced on Wednesday a four-year strategic global initiative, at Interop Las Vegas 2009, to deliver an end-to-end unified communications and collaboration solution.

As part of their Frontline Partnership, the two companies expect to invest up to an additional $180 million in product development, professional services, as well as joint sales and marketing, to help organizations lower cost and improve productivity, said a press release.

The end-to-end solution, which is planned to span software, hardware, networking and services would enable customers to improve business output and reduce travel, telecom and IT operating costs, it said.

This would be accomplished by streamlining communications across messaging, video and voice with connected applications and devices. HP and Microsoft also plan to provide the flexibility and control customers' need to manage their communications infrastructure efficiently, the release added.

“Customers can lower costs and rapidly enhance employee productivity with unified communications and collaboration from HP and Microsoft,” said Ann Livermore, executive vice president, Technology Solutions Group, HP.

He added that they provide customers with solutions that are rich, intuitive and accessible from anywhere on nearly any device.

HP and Microsoft share a vision for business productivity solutions built on open, software-based platforms that work with the applications and systems people know and use today.

“Together, we are offering the extensive breadth of capabilities of our respective technologies to deliver a truly unified communications and collaboration solution to help our customers improve business productivity,” said Stephen Elop, president, Microsoft Business Division, Microsoft.

He added that this means one click to communicate, one click to conference, one click to collaborate.

The two companies would form joint teams to collaborate on products and services development across Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Office Communications Server, as well as HP ProCurve networking products.

The partners will provide end point interoperability with HP Halo Telepresence Solutions and Microsoft Office Communications Server-based unified conferencing, enabling remote participants at any Microsoft Office Communication Server-enabled PC to join telepresence conferences, the release added.